Ulla de Stricker says expand definitions of what we do in a time-scarce economy.

@Chibbie Talking about how TEDx would be great for inspiration.

Michael Stephens: Libraries have the potential to be anywhere and everywhere.

@chibbie Says if you look for roles to take on don’t look for the word ‘librarian’ in description. Our skills go beyond the name.

Surprisingly even though conference is technology based, there has been a great focus on people interaction.

Thoughts on the conference

I really enjoyed the whole event, including meeting friends/people I know on Twitter and plenty of other library/information based people from so many different countries.

Even though they weren’t always of direct relevance to my current role, most of the presentations I sat-in on were of interest to me. They helped me put my job and library service into the wider context of library and information services in general. It’s useful to attend an event like this to remind yourself where your place might be in the grand scheme of things and how librarians and information specialist throughout the world are working towards common goals.

The key themes that came across during the conference were:

Library and information services and our information skills don’t have to be constrained by the walls of the library or the title “librarian”.

We need to share resources and knowledge with each other – by either collaborating with others to share the load or by pulling together isolated silos of information.

Libraries are key to developing social change and improving society – they open up access to reliable and relevant sources of information to everyone, and we are the chaperones of that information and those who want to access it.

We can help improve ourselves and our services by making sure we use the most appropriate tools available.

We are in an age where people are just as much content creators as information consumers and we need to understand how this impacts on the provision and management of information services

Even though it was a technology based conference, there was just as much emphasis on the human side of things, which appealed to me. Maybe within this area there’s a suggestion here that technology in information and library work will still need a reasonable amount of human input and not just steam along like a Google search engine, without anyone there to say “Hold up! Are you sure this information is correct?”

As I say, I really enjoyed the conference, and hopefully I’ll get the chance to attend again some time in the future.